Opportunity knocks
McGowan, Jo
JO McGOWAN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS And in India, the servant class responds Hot the past three months, my friend Savita has been looking for a family to live in her servants' quarter. Her primary need...
...Bringing up children in such an environment has been a real challenge...
...Washing machines and vacuum cleaners were practically unheard of when we first moved here...
...The class of people who once would work gratefully and faithfully for a family for generations now has aspirations of its own...
...The family that finally did move in has agreed only to provide the original service of security...
...The woman looks after her own child and does nothing in Savita's house...
...And the kind of arrangement Savita had hopes of finding is fast becoming a thing of the past...
...When Savita began her search, her demands were stringent: a young couple, preferably with no children...
...Most people are not so good as to avoid temptation when it is presented as acceptable and even desirable...
...I have hosted several potluck dinners, which amused my friends enormously (potluck is an unknown concept here), until they realized how much more fun it is to be able to enjoy your own party...
...Savita's husband's job keeps him away from home for four months at a time, and she lives alone with her twelve-year-old son...
...the man goes to his own job each day and does none of the tasks Savita had hoped to assign him...
...How easy it is to believe yourself to be more important, more worthy of consideration when cleaning your own toilet is seen as beneath you...
...They live on the property so that Savita can feel safe when leaving the house unattended...
...India is changing...
...While I also do my best to treat everyone who works in our home as a human being with needs the same as mine, I find it surprisingly difficult, given my own nature and some Indians' endless willingness to be put upon...
...I am glad to see the system changing...
...Nowadays, as Savita discovered, the situation is different...
...People want a clear-cut job, with defined hours and agreed-on duties...
...The on-call, twenty-four-hours-a-day system that was the norm with a live-in domestic helper is no longer tolerable to most people, however desperate they are for work...
...I, for one, need curbs built into my life...
...The market has kept abreast of the times and more labor-saving devices are available...
...I need to be around people who remind me, by their own belief in themselves (apart from my often faulty memory of the fact), that every human being is not only precious but also equal...
...When I came to India twenty-two years ago, servants were easily available and impossible to do without...
...It is an interesting process to observe...
...Savita's son could walk the dog and she would open the gate herself...
...Huge parties-which servants would slave over for days in preparation, execution, and cleaning-are now less common as people have to manage so much of the entertaining themselves...
...And how many times have I heard the argument here that it is pointless for someone with my talents and skills to waste my time sweeping the floor and chopping vegetables when there are plenty of unskilled, uneducated people waiting to do it for me...
...Her primary need is security...
...and the husband prepared to wash the car daily, water the plants every evening, walk the dog twice a day, and open the gate any time a visitor arrived...
...now they are a standard feature in most middle-class homes...
...I have found it difficult to get mine to do even the basic minimum around the house (making their beds, clearing the table, washing dishes) when a servant is at hand and not only willing to do it, but horrified not to...
...As the weeks went by and no one suitable appeared, Savita set her sights lower: one or two children would be OK, the husband did not have to water the plants or wash the car, the woman could work part time...
...Since her quarter is considered comfortable and the area in which she lives desirable, she was sure she could do better than attract just glorified tenants...
...Although I did my best to manage on my own, the climate, the dust, the total lack of conveniences, and the near-total lack of basic amenities (like water and electricity) soon did me in...
...Even those who have followed their own parents and become domestic servants do not want their children to do the same...
...When I come home hot and tired and someone offers to make me a glass of cold lemonade, it is easy to forget that they are also hot, also tired, and that no one is going to make them lemonade...
...the wife willing to work in Savita's house (for which Savita would pay a generous salary...
Vol. 130 • April 2003 • No. 8
